New York and Its Nobel Laureates

Updated, 3:06 p.m. | The first American to win a Nobel Prize was a New Yorker, and many of the subsequent ones were, too.

Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his work in brokering the 1905 peace treaty formally ending the Russo-Japanese War. It was the first Nobel awarded to an American after the prizes were established in 1901.

Thus Theodore Roosevelt Park, a neighbor of the American Museum of Natural History, was considered the natural home when the city’s Parks Department and the Swedish Embassy wanted to find a space for a monument to American Nobel laureates.

The Alfred Nobel monument, a pink obelisk at 81st Street, was erected in 2003. Each year, the names of the new American laureates are engraved on the stone.

On Thursday, a ceremony unveiled the names of four Americans who were awarded Nobels in 2008: Roger Y. Tsien and Martin Chalfie for chemistry; Paul R. Krugman (an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times) for economics; and Yoichiro Nambu for physics.

Americans make up fully one-third of Nobel Prize laureates; no other country has as many. And as Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, observed, “A large number of those Americans are either those who came from New York, or spent their educational or professional career in New York.” Indeed, at least 60 have before being awarded the Nobel Prize.

It is not just the universities and research institutions — like Columbia, Rockefeller and New York Universities — that can list their Nobel laureates. New York City’s public school system has produced more than 25, according to data from the Board of Education. Bronx High School of Science has produced at least six, while its rival, Stuyvesant High School, has produced four. Far Rockaway High School, DeWitt Clinton and James Madison and have produced two apiece. CUNY has 12 graduates who have won the Nobel.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs are produced by the city’s cultural, museums and research organizations, Mr. Benepe noted, adding: “It’s a very important part of the city’s life and economy.”

Mr. Benepe took special pride in the monument because it was dedicated to collective intellectual achievement, which is rare as far as monuments go. In contrast, he noted, many monuments celebrate military and political achievements.

One might muse whether New York is the city that has produced the densest number of Nobel laureates per square mile, but at the very least it is likely to be trumped by Cambridge, Mass., which at just over 6.4 square miles has been home to more than 40 laureates at Harvard and M.I.T.

Nonetheless, Mr. Benepe joked, “You can’t go around New York City without bumping into a Nobel laureate.” Earlier in the week, he was at a gala conversing with a man who was pleased with the renovation of Washington Square Park. It turned out the man was Robert F. Engle III, an N.Y.U. professor who was awarded the Nobel prize for economic science in 2003.

There are now 308 names on the obelisk, and Mr. Benepe estimated that at the current pace of awards for Americans, there was room for at least 40 or 50, and perhaps 60 more years’ worth of names.

Below is a noncomprehensive list of New Yorkers who have been awarded the Nobel Prize. Unless otherwise indicated, institutions listed were the affiliation at the time of the prize. More suggestions are welcome.

I always believed the Nobel Prize was honorable., but then when Al Gore won a Nobel Prize I realized how phony the world of science and awards could be.
I am convinced Albert Einstein and Mark Twain were only “actors” the world is anillusion.//www.CaptainDemocracy.wordpress.com

We’re glad that the article indicates that this is a non comprehensive list of New Yorkers who have won the Nobel Prize, because there are a number missing. You can add at least three more who went to Lincoln, and two more who went to Madison. We have to disagree somewhat though, with Mr. Benepe’s remark that a large number of those Americans came from New York. He could have been more specific, when mentioning New York, because if there is one common thread among many of these laureates, as to where they grew up and spent their nuturing years, it is that they came from Brooklyn, but not from places like Park Slope and Williamsburg, but rather from the neighborhoods of Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Coney Island, and Flatbush, and they weren’t educated in the Parochial, Private, and Yeshiva schools, but got their educations on the sunlit streets and excellent Public High Schools, such as Linclon, Madison, Midwood, New Utrecht, and Tech, where they recieved a well rounded education, and were exposed to a variety of backgorounds. And in many instances, this is still happening today, in those same places!

Paul Nurse (President of Rockefeller University) and Harold Varmus (President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering).
Both of them won the Nobel for medicine. Neither of them were New Yorkers when they won their Nobels, but it seems that that’s the case with others on your list above.

And by the way, Varmus was just on the Daily Show (on March 2) — shouldn’t there be a category for New Yorker/Nobelists who were on the Daily Show?

uchicago lists laureates “associated” with university. Most of them do not live in Chicago, but simply studied or used to work there at some point in their lives. If you count nobel laureates who still live and work in Chicago, the number will be much smaler. Cambridge MA still wins hands down – either in “real” number or “associated number.

How about a monument to all the thousands of high school science, literature, history, and related teachers who have inspired and taught these Nobel Laureates? Or the Nobel Laureates of tomorrow? You don’t need a Nobel Prize to deserve recognition.

post #2 (mgh) is sorely mistaken by UChicago and should read the fine print on the website…post #8 (oleg) good job remarking on that because i was going to reply the same thing as you did!

i think it is great that the US has done so well with the nobel so forget density! however, one can hope this type of list will encourage the government to continue its spending on education, research, grants, etc…

also, let us not forget a lot of the nobel winners are immigrants that became citizens or children of immigrants (1st generation) so while the US must absolutely protect its borders and have sensible immigration policy, it should not forget that its melting pot structure is what gives it an edge…at least, until china stops buying our treasuries :(

Elihu Root won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912. Mr. Root has many New York City connections. Root graduated from the New York University School of Law, and the went into private practice in New York. Root was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by President Chester A. Arthur. In 1921, Root help establish the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. Mr. Root also passed away in New York City in 1937.

I know of at least one who is missing from your list. Russell A. Hulse graduated from Bronx HS of Science in 1966, and from Cooper Union with a BS in Physics in 1970. He was a co-recipient of the Nobel in Physics in 1993.

The winners listed here graduated from the public school system before the 1970’s. I began attended the Brooklyn public school system in the 1970’s and I received a poor quality education, as you can probably tell from my writing. I totally believe that the public school system only benefits students that very gifted or very delayed. The average/borderline smart student gets lost in the system.

@#5:
Yes! U.C. Berkeley not only has the highest concentration of Nobels but the most PhD.’s over 5000 per year the highest granted anywhere on the Planet Earth. “A fact.”
Also Berkeley ended the World War II with the drop of the bomb on Nagasaki Dr. Seaborg designed it, the “Dirtiest Bomb”.//www.CaptainDemocracy.wordpress.com

Carolina, #15. Very funny! Though we don’t doubt, that an excellent education can take place in the variety of private schools out there, you can now go back to your Brother, or Rabbi, or Headmaster, and say, you at least tried, or as you would write, treyed!

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